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Sermon Series

413 And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope.14 For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.

15We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died.16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves.17Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever.18So encourage each other with these words.

5 Now concerning how and when all this will happen, dear brothers and sisters, we don’t really need to write you. 2 For you know quite well that the day of the Lord’s return will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night. 3 When people are saying, “Everything is peaceful and secure,” then disaster will fall on them as suddenly as a pregnant woman’s labor pains begin. And there will be no escape.

4 But you aren’t in the dark about these things, dear brothers and sisters, and you won’t be surprised when the day of the Lord comes like a thief. 5 For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. 6 So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. 7 Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk. 8 But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation.

9 For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. 10 Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. 11 So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.

One out of every 30 verses in the Bible mentions the subject of Christ’s return or the end of time. Of the 216 chapters in the New Testament, there are well over 300 references to the return of Jesus Christ! 23 of the 27 New Testament books specifically mention Jesus’ return. Well-known and reliable men of God like Job, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, as well as most of the shorter prophetic books mention Jesus’ return in their writings. And the Lord Jesus Himself often spoke in great detail about His future return to the Earth.

Even so, after 2,000 years of waiting, I know that many Christians struggle to liveeagerly expecting His return. And we’re not alone. Within only 40 years of Jesus’ ascension into Heaven some had already begun asking, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.” (2 Peter 3:4)

Is He really coming back to the Earth? And if he is, why, for what reason? And, how will it happen, what will it be like?

Well, first off, our reading this morning tells us that one of the reasons Jesus is coming back is to take us out of the world. The Bible has promised a time when God the Father would destroy this creation (because it’s been so marred by sin and suffering and death), and at that time He will replace it with a new creation where there will be no more occasions for sadness or crying or pain or death, ever again. And the Lord Jesus will come to take Christians out of the world before that wholesale destruction will happen.

He’s also coming back to show everyone who has ever lived that He is truly alive, that He is risen from the dead; that He really is the “Son of God” and “God the Son”; and that He is thepower in Heaven and on the Earth, the true Ruler of all, supreme over all earthly kings and presidents and congresses and parliaments, etc… And though the Scriptures show us – when He returns – that many will prefer dying than facing Him and having to acknowledge His supremacy, that when He returns that everyone will recognize His majesty, and every knee will bow and every tongue will declare Him to be God the Son to the glory of God the Father.

Over the centuries, some have argued that Jesus has already returned: Invisibly, and to only a few of the faithful. And that sounds nice, and mysterious, and very “spiritual”, but the Bible never even hints at the idea that Jesus might ever return in secret.

No, the Lord Jesus Himself taught that His return would be not only visible but worldwide! “For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes,” (Matthew 24:27) Jesus said. Yes, He Himself said that every person alive at that time will see Him when He returns, because He said, “The sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the Earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:30)

Not everyone will be happy about Jesus coming back. Even while the Christians in Asia and Africa are pointing and cheering and clapping! even while Christians in South America and Europe are crying out to Him and rejoicing! the unbelievers around them will be mourning and wailing at His coming! Even while the Christians here in North America (us with them, if we’re alive then) are dancing together and jumping up and down! and the Christians in Australia and Antarctica are weeping with joy and reaching up their hands to Him in the air! the atheists and freethinkers and agnostics and others around us will be shrieking and trying to run away. Because what for us will be – I hope – our greatest joy and the fulfillment of everything we’ve lived for and sacrificed for, will be for them the unimaginable – and for those who hate Him, their worst nightmares come true!

Even so, it won’t just be a visual spectacle. Jesus’ return will be loud! The Lord states, “And He will send out His angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather His chosen ones from all over the world—from the farthest ends of the Earth and Heaven,” (Matthew 24:31) because the resurrection of the faithful will happen when He returns, as well. As Paul wrote more fully in our reading this morning, “For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves.” (v. 16) Yeah, when He comes we’ll see Him coming with Ivah and Benny, and Frances and David and Dottie will be there, too, vibrant and celebrating with us all! We’ll see Steve and Bob and Ed and Wil… [Call out to the congregation] “Who will you be hoping to see?” … Yeah, and there will be Adele and Jean and Sterling and Catherine…

And as the creation begins to break apart we’ll find ourselves – while we’re cheering! weeping! laughing! dancing! – we’ll start slowly rising up off … wherever we are at that time … as gravity loses its hold on us and Jesus draws us to Himself. And there will be Elise and Bea, and Karl and Katarina, and Fred and John. (Anybody else you’re wanting to see?) And there they’ll be, already with the Lord! And we’ll join them, all of us laughing and grinning ear-to-ear together! Because He’s finally come for us! (There’s Sandy! And Charley! And Leona! And Emma!) But, of course, best of all: Jesus! He’s really come! At last He’s come back for us!!

I can say all this with such confidence because Paul goes on in our reading, “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17) (And with Helen and Gerry and Brian and Carolyn.) (And with James and Bill and Vinnie and Eva…) And our bodies will be gloriously transformed as we are raised up to Him, even as we see that Art and Laura and Joan and Elaine and Aimee’s bodies having been gloriously transformed, too!

And it will all be so wonderful! But at the same time it will all be so serious, because the Lord will come as Savior, yes! but He will also come as Judge, and He will reward or punish everyone – each of us – according to our good or bad words and deeds, and if forgiven because of our faith or not forgiven because of our unbelief, and according to those deeds done in faith and those deeds not done in faith… (Revelation 22:12)

And as Jesus judges – every judgment fair, every judgment the very best decision that could be made, what each and every one deserves and requires – around us creation is being remade, but this time nothing less than perfection. And as everything and everyone who is selfish and loves wickedness and prefers sin and cares no more about life than about death are taken away and destroyed, we realize there is nothing that can or will every mar or mess up this new creation ever again! Paradise! Eternity! And with Christ – face-to-face – forever and ever and ever!

I know that we can get so distracted by the good stuff and bad stuff that happens to us here in the world. But it’s this life-to-come with Jesus that He has promised to bring us that we need to be living for, and motivated by. Good things, horrible things, will always be a part of our living in this life. But the new Heaven and the new Earth will be everything we’ve ever hoped for, everything we’ve ever wanted, what human beings were made for – fulfilled! And so very far beyond our wildest dreams! We dare not miss it!!!

And we’ll talk next week about the life that Jesus calls us to for us to look forward to all of it with assurance and confidence (and servant-heartedness and love)!

PASTOR: Anyone go through any of the “X-Ray Questionnaire” from last week? Did the Holy Spirit help you “see” idols in your heart that you hadn’t been aware of before? Yeah, me, too…

Several weeks ago I spoke about a war going on in the minds of every Christian: How we want to live the ways God calls us to live but can often feel as though there are invisible powers working against us trying to get us to live our old selfish, sinful ways, instead. So we began talking about the importance of the Bible – what Paul calls the “Sword of the Spirit” – in fighting this ongoing, daily battle inside ourselves.

Pete Chapin from The Gideons International came and shared stories of those whose lives have been transformed by reading, believing, and acting on the words of the Bible. And I shared that “X-Ray Questionnaire” to help us uncover the lies, the clever deceptions, and the twisted truths that we’ve accepted into our thinking and believing and then went on to talk of how to begin finding the appropriate truths across the Bible to combat them and help us begin building and reinforcing our lives on Christ.

Today I’m going to share with you a training regimen – a daily pattern, if you will – for keeping ourselves in the Scriptures, for feeding upon God’s Word, for saturating ourselves with the Bible day by day by day. The regimen – the pattern – has three parts: Reading the Bible; praying the Bible; and, memorizing the Bible.

Let’s receive the Word of God…

ELDER: Colossians 3:1-17 [NLTse] (Announce the address several times, giving everyone in the congregation who’s trying to the time they need to get their Bibles open to the right page.)

1 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of Heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of Heaven, not the things of Earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, Who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all His glory.

5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. 7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. 8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. 9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. 10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like Him. 11 In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized,slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and He lives in all of us.

12 Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Sermon

There’s nothing difficult about reading the Scriptures, unless you’ve ever committed yourself to read them, that is. I can be living the most quiet, simple life. But as soon as I commit to start reading the Bible every day all of the sudden people are calling me and stopping by, overtime’s being given or I start having to take work home, every interruption all the busyness you can think of starts happening as soon I commit to begin reading the Bible.

So the very first step, I think, as we begin and continue to commit to fill ourselves with the Scripture is making a daily appointment to do so. If you live your life by a calendar then write it or program it in. Just like with any other appointment, don’t let distractions or even urgent matters get in the way. Of course there will be exceptions: Truly life-and-death emergencies and other such things will always have us reschedule our appointments. Okay. But other than such extremes, make the appointment and keep it, every day.

Where do you start (or go next) and how much to read? Start where you’re most excited. If you’ve always wanted to read one of the gospels, start there. If you’ve always wanted to read Genesis, start there. If you read online, or if the Bible you’re reading has section headings, just read one section at a time, and use the “Ten Ways To Apply God’s Word To Your Life” Insert that’s in today’s Bulletin to the passage. (Let’s pull that out.) You don’t have to do all ten. Try them and then pick two or three that work for and help you live His Word in your life.

You can also use the reading plans in one of the devotional booklets around the church: Daily Walk takes you through the Bible in a year (with some study helps); Closer Walk takes you through the New Testament in one year (again, with some helps). Tapestry, Youth Walk, Upper Room, Daily Bread each have their own reading plans and devotional supplements. Or if you know you can’t (or won’t) read every day, start with the four Scripture at the top of our UPCOMING EVENTS page in the Bulletin each week: Seven days, only four readings! And, again, consider using a couple of the activities on the “Ten Ways To Apply God’s Word To Your Life” Insert to drive it into your mind and heart.

I recommend setting a timer – on your phone or on the stove. In our day of hectic schedules and deadlines to keep, if you’re busy and have never read the Bible each day before, you may find yourself always looking at the clock to make sure you’re not late for … whatever you’re concerned you might be late for. A timer will give you confidence that you won’t be late so you can be fully present with the Lord as you read. Start with 15 minutes, and when you want to increase (and over time you will) set it for 30 minutes. (And go on as the Lord keeps drawing you.) But just start and feel good about even 15…

One of the activities on the “Ten Ways To Apply God’s Word To Your Life” Insert is to Pray the Scripture back to God. And that’s what I’d like to talk about next.

If you still have your Bibles open, great. If not, open to Colossians 3:12… [After everyone’s there] Perhaps we’re reading through Colossians (like we did this morning and like the Study that’s beginning this Thursday night at Carol Phillips’ home), your section – “Living the New Life” – begins with verse 1 and continues through verse 17. Perhaps verse 12 catches your attention: “Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” You decide to pray it back to God, and it might go something like this: “God: You have chosen me, chosen me to be holy – different from those around me! You dearly love me. Help me to be truly compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient.”

When we pray the Scriptures we are taking what we’ve read and learned from our readings and praying the main points for ourselves, others, or for situations around us back to God.

Here’s another one based on Matthew 6:25-34. Let’s look through the passage for a moment, and then I will pray it… Won’t you pray with me? “Father-God, Your Word says that I am more valuable to You than even the most breath-taking wonders of Your creation. You know all the things I need, and You don’t want me to worry about any of them… Father, set me truly free from anxiety and striving-for-myself. Set me truly free to seek Your Kingdom in my work and daily responsibilities and to let You worry about providing the things that I need. Help me to make seeking You my priority, and to trust You with all my troubles each and every day.”

Joni Eareckson-Tada says this about Scripture-prayer: “We pray, ‘In Jesus’ name’ at the end of our prayers so naturally but we need to learn to pray like Jesus Who is the Word of God… The Bible is our prayer book, and we’d be remiss to neglect its riches. It holds the key to finding God’s will when we pray, providing balance and meaning. Great themes abound: God’s holiness, wisdom, faithfulness, sovereignty, love, and mercy – all of which beautify our praises, adorn our intercessions, embroider our petitions, and give weight and significance to every supplication. Most of all, using the Word of God in prayer is about as close as we can get to the Living Word, the Lord Jesus. If we’re going to pray in His name, it makes sense to speak in His language.”

Lastly, I’d like to talk about memorizing the Bible. Let’s pull out another Insert you’ll find in your Bulletins titled, “Taste And See That The Lord Is Good – Scripture To Memorize And Feed Your Soul”.

Years ago me and my family started trying to memorize Scripture. We work very hard to have dinner together every night, so we chose to try to memorize around the dinner table, with me quizzing everybody in random order. It was great fun, and we learned and took a lot of God’s Word deep into our hearts. But I messed it up.

We were trying to memorize one passage a week, and then – week by week – refreshing our memorization of the old passages while continuing to memorize new ones. We got a bit behind and I wanted to try to catch-us-up by having us memorize two passages at a time for a couple of weeks. Nobody else around the dinner table wanted to, but I pushed and pushed trying to get my way…

I succeeded. That is, I did not succeed in having my family grow in memorizing the Bible, but I did succeed in aggravating my children (as Colossians warns us against doing). It wasn’t long afterwards that nobody was interested in memorizing as a family any more.

I share that as a lesson-learned in how not to do it. But while it was working for us we wrote the verses on index cards and kept the stack of cards close by the dining room table. Sometimes I took them to review while I was walking on the treadmill… You know what would work for you…

Read the Bible. Pray the Bible. Memorize the Bible. Make whatever changes in your life you need to make to take the Scriptures into you and make the Word of God a part of you. It is the positive spiritual power established in us by listening and taking into ourselves the Word of God that enables us to counter the negative thoughts or suggestions planted in our minds by the evil one. To live such an empowered life and win this battle of the mind we have to read the Bible so much that when the devil tries to tempt us through unwanted thoughts or tricky situations, we can say “no”, (through the power of the Holy Spirit).

Ascription of Praise

Now, “Let the Word of Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” (Colossians 3:16-17)

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Sermon – “Winning the War of the Mind”

Anybody recognize this? Yeah, it’s a sonogram. It’s just a picture I took off the internet, but I remember Amy and I going in for her whatever week sonogram all excited to see what our son, Caleb, was doing, making sure he was healthy, and hoping to get a glimpse of what he was going to look like… We didn’t want the technician to show us his private parts because – like with all three of our kids – we wanted to be surprised and wait until they were born to find out whether they were a boy or a girl. But I remember it was exciting…

Have you seen the new 3-D sonograms? Yeah, it’s like you’re right in there with the little guy or gal…

First we had X-rays, and then CT scans, and now MRIs. We had sonograms and now 3-D sonograms, and even (what they’re calling) 4-D sonograms – a 3-D movie of your unborn child skipping and dancing and sticking out their tongue in the womb! Science is constantly improving the ways of showing us what we can’t – on our own – see. What’s going on out there in space and the far corners of the universe; what’s going on at the molecular, atomic, and subatomic levels; what’s going on inside of our bodies, and even inside our various organs and cells themselves! Right inside a mom’s womb!

And yet, to see inside a persons’ heart – to see the condition of one’s soul – that remains a mystery…

Two Sunday’s ago we started talking about the spiritual battle that’s going on in every Christian’s mind: The battle that would distract us from God’s things (if we would let it); the battle that would make us luke-warm about Jesus (if we were to ignore it); the battle that could keep us from growing in Christ (if we weren’t to fight it); the battle that could make our lives no different than if we had never believed (if we were to lose it).

We talked about how this battle is waged around different lies we’ve believed: The lies that, perhaps, we believed before we gave our lives to Christ and that our hopes and fears are built upon; or the lies that, perhaps, we’ve come to believe through the effectiveness of the devil’s propaganda around us in our culture; lies that we’ve believed so thoroughly that we’ve built our values, our relationships, set our priorities, and developed our ways of living upon them. (Or been strongly influenced by them.)

To engage in the battle we need to be able to identify these lies. But how can a person see inside his or her own heart? O, if we could only see inside our souls as readily as we can see inside a mother’s womb!

But God has given us a way: In our families; in the Body of Christ.

Many of us are surrounded by family members and Christian friends who love us enough to tell us the truth about those idols we’ve unknowingly put our trust in, those lies of the world we’ve at different times believed, those twisted or misapplied truths that we’ve built our lifestyles and set our dreams upon. Usually we hear about these things from them when we’re in an argument, but here’s an opportunity to ask them for ourselves: To get their help against these battles we’re fighting in our minds.

Insecurity, jealousy, money, arrogance, rage, appearances… are all among the replies we should prepare ourselves to hear. But let’s try to receive them in love, asking clarifying questions if we need to, but perhaps just accepting the list as it is given to seek the Lord more about in our prayers.

Scott Thomas, one of the pastors of the online Acts 29 Network, has put together a listing of 35 questions a person who wants to know the truths of these hidden things might ask themselves. If you’ll look in your bulletins you’ll find it there… The questions are intended to help us see what our fears are based on, the focus of our dreams, where we’ve truly placed our hopes. Answer the questions honestly. Again, I would encourage you to bounce the results off a family member or Christian friend who knows us well and loves us enough to do the difficult things. The Lord teaches us that “just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” (Matthew 7:20) And so you and I can trust that those closest to us will know the truth of these things.

All the while, of course, let’s be asking God to reveal these secrets to us. God knows our hearts. Acts 1:24 tells us God knows every heart. Psalm 44:21 makes clear He knows the secrets of every heart. And Psalm 139:4 shows us that He indeed does since He knows what we’re going to say even before we’ve said it. We can count on Him helping us to know our hearts and reveal to us these secrets of our souls.

(This may all sound very psycho-babbly, and this part kind of is. But if we want to defeat our enemy it helps to know the weapons the enemie’s using to try and defeat us. And once we have an idea what it is that we’ve believed that is not true or what we’ve put our hope and trust in that are not God, we can begin training and equipping ourselves to believe and trust rightly and win the fight!)

Now that we know we have an enemy and know some of the lies and twisted truths he may be using against us, we can start fighting back. And, as we’ve been talking about these past two weeks, that’s where the Bible comes in.

Last week Pete Chapin from The Gideon’s International ministry came and shared story after story about the ways that simply reading and believing the Bible have transformed peoples’ thinking and lives around the world. Hebrews 4:12 says, “The Word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” Just what we need – now that we have some insight into some of those innermost thoughts and desires that might be keeping us from growing in Christ – just what we need to begin getting them out of us!

So, with “money” and “appearances” in mind, (two of the most prominent deceptions and twisted truths around our culture) how can I find out what God says is the truth about these things that are keeping me from fully giving Jesus my heart?

[Pick up the concordance.] Well, this is a concordance. Every single word that’s found in the Bible can be found in a concordance. (And many Bibles have little concordances in the backs of them, as well.) So I can look up “money” in my concordance and find every instance where the word “money” is used across the Scriptures. [Pick up the topical bible.] Or, this is a topical bible. Since looking up the word “appearances” may not take me to helpful passages or truth I can look up “appearances” and see what I can find, but I can also look up “vanity” since that’s related to it, or “beauty”. And it will show me the different teachings across the Bible about these things.

Of course, the computer makes it so easy. Bible Gateway is the most used Bible tool on the internet. Type in biblegateway.com; click on “Topical Index” in the left-hand column; and type “money” into the Search box. Depending on how often the Bible speaks about your topic – money’s a biggie – you might get a handful or you might get pages of listings. With “money” typed in the search bar you can see listings ranging from what the money referred to in the Bible was made from as well as examples of those who were covetous in wanting the money others had, and, as you can see, a lot more.

Now, when I typed “appearances” into the Search box I got a bunch of hits about “angel appearances” and “miraculous appearances” and the like. But when I typed in “vanity” and “beauty” I came up with all sorts of examples and truths to help put my twisted thoughts right again.

The goal of using these concordances and topical bibles is to equip us with Scripture passages that we can read again and again, meditating upon them, asking the Father to reveal to us how our lives would be different if we truly believed these things. To write these truths, to recite these truths, to pray asking the Lord to make these truths – His truth – the bases for the ways we live, for our deepest and innermost desires and dreams. We’ll talk more about that next week.

John Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, “The human heart is a factory of idols… Everyone of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.” You and I can know that something or someone is an idol in our hearts if it gives us worth, value, identity, peace, satisfaction, meaning or fulfillment because only the gospel can truly provide these things. Salvation, satisfaction, significance and pleasure are ultimately only found in Jesus: Only Jesus will never disappoint us. And if we ask Him and seek Him He will work with us and help us to uncover and get rid of every counterfeit!

So with the Holy Spirit’s help, search out the appropriate scriptures that address your issues. These scriptures will tell you what God is saying about that issue and will also give you your weapons of warfare to meditate and act upon on against them.

We’ll talk more next Sunday about some daily disciplines and a “training regimen” we can implement to win this “battle of our minds”.

Come! Bring your friends! And grow in the freedom we have in Christ. Jesus is the truth. And the truth will set us free!